Alpaca and Nature Day Camp 2012 Dates

We are already thinking about camp for 2012 and the dates have been set:

Session I - June 11-15
Session II - June 25-29
Session III - July 9-13
Session IV - July 23-27
10 campers +1 CIT per session. 

Come join us for a unique learning experience.
Call:             573-815-9500      .
Registration will begin in January. Check back in January for more 
information.




Here are some pictures from Alpaca and Nature Day Camp 2011, enjoy!

We sure had a lot of fun at camp this past summer!

Alpaca & Nature Day Camp 2011 is nearly full

!I am happy to report there are just 2 opens left for the upcoming summer.  Both openings are in Session I, June 13 - 17.          


This is a very exciting summer as we 5 years of camps!      

Camps are Filling UP

Meet Buster, he is our new little boy.  He is excited about meeting the campers.  All of our younger alpacas will be working with the campers.

Below is Frederica and Delilah.  Some of you might remember Delilah.  she is usually very easy to handle.  Frederica was born in the fall, she is fiesty and extremely playful. 

Pippi and Freja will be there with the campers, too!

Pippi

Freja and Pippi.

Time to to Work on Those Day Camps!

In the summer, I am so busy with Alpaca and Nature Day-Camps that we conduct here on the farm.  They have been very popular and have many repeat campers.  The campers learn all about alpacas and how to train them, how to spin their fiber on a spinningwheel, weaving, sometimes knitting, and fiber education.  Each camper has a note book full of information to take home with them at the end of camp.
Because so many campers come to numerous sessions, I have to have every session fresh with new material for them to learn.  That is what I am working on right now for this summer.  I am getting ready to make up some sample projects.  I absolutelly love the day camps and they bring a nice summer income to the farm.

Campers working with the alpacas.Freja gives alpaca kisses!

A finished triangle loom project!An alpaca negotiates the obstacle course.There is a great deal of satisfaction in spinning.

Getting Ready for Alpaca and Nature Day-Camp

It is exciting to be thinking of summer and the next sessions of Alpaca & Nature Day Camp!  I have sent out a letter to the previous campers.  Now I am going to work on our new knitting unit.   I am making sample of patterns.  Last year the kids made their own knitting needles and I am thinking of doing that this year.  I will be making up a terms sheet for each area we are working with the campers.  The campers will be doing barn chores, halter training, alpaca anatomy, planting a garden, harvesting a garden, working with alpaca fiber, spinning on a spinning wheel, weaving on a loom, skipping rocks in the stream, other nature on the farm.

I am Back once Again

Winter has been really hard here at Sycamore Creek Farm. The snow is beautiful and welcomed as a blanket for our plants. However, the alpacas would like some area where the snow is not covering the ground so they can kush. The problem has not been the snow, rather the subzero temps. The alpacas, for the most part have enjoyed the cooler weather, but I have not. Despite three pairs of gloves, my fingertips freeze within a few minutes. It is hard to refill the heated water buckets and to clean up the more than frozen poop. As I find myself bitching about winter on the farm I know that my heart is in this farm and there is not another place I would rather reside.
I love my walks along the frozen creek. On those walks I get to know the other critters that reside on the farm. Their tracks show their playful side. I come across places where they have stopped to play in the snow. I see the tracks from the deer walking down the center of the frozen creek. Our critters are very active in this bitter winter weather.
We are having a mid-January thaw, so the temps will improve, but the mud will and wetness will be the new factors to deal with. Of course, that means there will be new adventures too.

Purely Alpaca Blog News, Updates, Specials, Sales, History and Humor

Purely Alpaca Blog News, Updates, Specials, Sales, History and Humor

Back after the crash

I had a computer crash, but now I am back online again. I had no idea how much I depend on my computer. I am still catching up and I just wanted to let you know.

By the way, there were the most beautiful orb spider webs dripping with dew this morning. Camp fires...they are a perfect ending to a busy day.
Alpaca Lady

Friendship, my thoughts

Very recently, a friend got upset with me. It really was for no reason and yet I still feel the upset inside. Part of my problem is that I often feel someone is a friend that really has not thought of me as one. Part of the problem is that when I consider someone a friend, I feel a closeness and devotion to the relationship that few people today ever experience. Maybe being a friend is old fashion, maybe it take too much effort in this high tech busy world. What ever, I am grateful to this forum that lets me vent when I need to.

Camp Na-Wa-Kwa

I am just taking it easy this weekend. After having a very busy week of water buckets, wading pools and just general dealing with the heat, I pulled a muscle in my upper back. I took a quick trip to the emergency room to confirm it was not a collapsed lung, as it was making it hard for me to take a deep breath. I am really much better, but my husband is doing the chores for a couple days so I can give the back a rest.
The weather has cooled some and although we turned the air on this afternoon, the windows are able to be open at least part of the day.
We are planning a day camp at the farm next year, so I have been working on the plans for that. It is really very exciting, as I am an old Girl Scout camper and I long to share with kids that knowledge and fun I had. I attended Camp Na-WA-Kwa in Poland Indiana for over 5 years. I think that part of me is still in the Pioneer Unit.

Every summer it was a total emergence into the natural world. It was wonderful and I do think those years had a great deal to do with the person I am today. I am an environmentalist, activist, a constant student of nature and sustainable living. Today, many young kids never get to experience the outdoors and all of its wonders.

Fresh Air

It is a beautiful, overcast morning. There is a cool breeze flowing through the screens, along with the locust humming and the peacefulness of the country. I have a relaxation within and my body is soaking up the energy it lost in the triple digit heat. I think how the weather affects me...Not just me, but the life cycle of all living beings.

In the last week I have found that two friends have and are going through breast cancer therapy. I set up my mamagram appointment. I feel so sorry and overwhelmed with this new knowledge. That is all I can say.

I need to get moving...Onward and with a new attitude. Is George Bush still president? Damn, somethings never change!

It is too hot

This is such a hot day. The alpacas, cats, and wildlife are wilted from the heat. Most of all I worry about our pregnant dam. She looks so unhappy.
I remember hot days like these back in the fifties. We didn't have air-conditioning so we played in the cool basement. That is where we played dolls. We had great fun in our little house down there under the big house. I guess I am aging, I delight in the memories I have of growing up. It is funny how I remember the good things with very little thought and the not so good things only if I really think about them. The bad things seem so much worse as I aged and was wiser.

The County Fair

There are some things that you do from your childhood and you continue to enjoy them, they make you smile and they make you feel like a kid inside. Last night we went to the county fair. It was a warm summer night, with smells of the barns, vapors of fair food and sounds of the animals, and people of all ages having fun. The Boone County Fair was very nice. It had the cleanest Midway and the "Carneys" were all in clean, yellow shirts. They certainly were a different caliber of people than we had at the Coles County Fair back home. I grew up in Charleston, Coles County, Illinois. We made potholders to raise funds for when the fair came to town. My Mom entered many items in the arts and craft part of the fair. As a kid, I won many ribbons on the projects she helped me enter. The fair was a major part of our summer. While I loved the animals, people, arts and crafts and the homemade lemonade, there were a few things missing that I have in my memories about the fair. There was no Black Walnut Taffy, no Bingo, no sulki horse races, no cows and no Vinegar French Fries. Everything else was great. If you know of a fair with the missing elements, please email me!

The Day is Great

It is a really nice start this morning, the birds are singing after a morning gentle shower. It is so nice when a gentle shower starts the day. I slept with air conditioning last night, awoke and immediately opened the windows. Country fresh, clean air!
I had planned a road trip that got canceled. That is like a gift of time when that happens. You have been planning and working to start the trip and a change takes place. Suddenly you are thrown off track and you have that gift of time. Now I am going to work on the summer day camp we are planning for next year. I need to research summer alpaca day camps. More to be added

Complaining Lady

It is to hot to write a post...more later!

Rain

We have had so much rain the last couple days. The wheel barrel is full, our lagoon is full and I am tired of it. Last night lightening struck and ignited a row of hay near our farm. Smoldering hay is so rancid and hangs in the air. It really bothers cria Royal Sigmund's lungs. After all he is only a month old. Though nothing is more miserable than a drought, rain can still bring you down. Rain in July means HUMIDITY in Missouri. That is such a difficult time for our animals. The air conditioning has been on several days and that makes all of us grumpy. I have a sister that is having a hard time right now. She is my baby sister and I just want to swoop her into my arms and make things right for her. I know I can't, so instead I sat down and wrote my kids an email about how special they are to me. I hope they really read what I wrote them. Too often we fail to let the ones we love know how much they mean to us. My eldest sister died in a car accident in 1981. I will never forget the morning she died and for no real reason I hugged her and told her much I loved her and how happy I was that she was my sister. That is the last memory I have of her. Sorry this is such a downer of an entry...Maybe the sun will shine tomorrow!

After the Fourth

It is always fun to have family and friends around to celebrate the holidays. Working up to the event is fun, as well. We ran in the fields with the alpacas, a new experience for our friends. Our friends and some family ate and shot off fireworks together. The teens and elders were all the same age for those few hours as they duc taped the plastic army men to the bottle rockets. They loved the danger of it all. We spectators were on a"high" from our friends as we sang patriotic songs and danced with sparklers to the sound of the the recorder played so well that one would have thought it was James Galway in our mists. We laughed, reminisced and entertained each other under the bounty of moonlight that filled the pastures. What fun...What a memory we created to be recovered on another Fourth of July!

Cranbrook Institute Summer 1969

I am not sure why, but I can't quit thinking about the summer of 1969 when I attended "The Adventure in Creativity" at the Cranbrook Institute in Bloomfield Hills Michigan. It was the pivotal point in my life. I am wondering what has happened to Lynne Greene, Duncan Harp, Kathy Shomstein, Jackie Robinson, and so many others. It was the summer of Woodstock, the moon landing and Viet Nam. I was seventeen and full of anxiety and creativity. The instructors...Ron and Diane Chudley, the Liptons and Peter Salvia to name a few were fantastic. We experienced film, drawing, creative writing, theater, dance, photography, costuming and much more. We baled out the infirmary on the fourth of July and sand bagged the doors of the gym. If this reaches anyone else that was there, I would love to hear from you!

It is so nice to be a Grandma!!!

It is so nice to have my granddaughter, Elsa, visit. This is the first time she has stayed more than a day or two. I had forgotten how tired a nearly four year old can make you. She makes me smile. I am so proud of her father for teaching her many of the values I taught him. She has a love of life. She is inquisitive and has her father's imagination. When she smiles, I see that she has my smile...My best feature. Elsa loves the alpacas and she is so proud of being our "farmer girl." It is something to watch her help in the barn. She is now leading our alpaca Lady Morningstar. I think they think of each other as equals. She watched a dung beetle burrow under the gravel in the barn. She was fascinated when I showed her the newly emerged locust drying its wings. The neatest thing is watching what I must have been like as a child. Like her grandmother and her father, her mind is so full of ideas and she never tires of tell what she is thinking. I worked on the computer with her, where she investigated letters in different fonts and made some greeting cards. We swam, checked the gardens, sorted through some boxes that are full of items needing a place in our home. We colored, went to the library, read books, picked out fabric and played paper dolls. How I would have hated to miss knowing this fantastic child. I look forward to when her brother will be old enough to come and spend special time with grandma and grandpa. How did I ever deserve to have these children in my life?

Elsa at the Opera

A couple of pictures!
Elsa got to try on a special hat!